ABSTRACT
Indians have been migrating to various parts of the world for a long time. The frequency of this emigration, for various purposes or reasons, got strengthened during the modern period, especially after the colonial powers established their control over most of the globe. The advent of industrialisation and the related prospects of growth demanded cheap and politically neutral labour. The case of Indians migrating to the Gulf is a unique example of movement of labour which has fulfilled both these criteria and also, in a way, helped in institutionalising British colonial authority. The Gulf region has always been a place of movement in terms of peoples, goods and ideas, wherein, during the 19th and 20th centuries, streams of colonially regulated Indian labourers and workers were exported. In fact, the existence of the modern Indian diaspora came into being mainly due to the subjugation of India by the British and its incorporation into the empire (Reid 1993).
